The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments centered on what’s become a cottage industry on the right: crafting legal and statutory challenges to social media platforms’ content moderation practices.
“Thumb on the scale.” Jesus…
The MAGA wing (as represented by Alito and Thomas here) are going full totalitarian and dropping all pretext of adhering to democratic principles. They want the world order to cater to their “righteous” whims, since they are the final Arbiters of Truth.*
* in their own minds.
Alito and Thomas are so predictable. I’d love to see Roberts assign the lead opinion to KBJ.
Private companies are free to do WTF they want, unless it somehow offends or harms our sugar daddies.
But lord forbid we treat the internet tubes like they’re a utility, like power or water! That’s against God. Information is a privilege, not a right, and you shouldn’t be examining its truthiness or originality either. In fact you shouldn’t even have the tools to do so.
This’ll go 5-4 to the fig leaf constitutionalists. It’d easily go the other way to the fascists if Cheeto Mussolini is allowed to appoint more scum.
“These euphemisms elude me.”
Which is tremendously enjoyable to him.
As are the euphemisms he creates for us, which, of course, he is certain eludes our small minds.
Cat
What a loathsome piece of shit he is.
In my best Thomas tone of disdain -
“I don’t understand your silly euphemisms - ‘full totalitarian’ or ‘democratic principles’ … you act like there’s a difference. How tedious.”
Private enterprises cannot discriminate against any protected classes. Otherwise, they are free to discipline as they see fit. Social media should be able to decide to whom they will allow access to their PRIVATE megaphones however they choose. Social media are amplifiers, and none of us has an inherent right to have our utterances amplified by a private company. The idea that lack of amplification constitutes censorship is patently absurd. Most people who claim they are being so “censored” find a way to be heard. Hence, there is no censorship by social media. There is only less amplification of garbage. Good.
“[To whom] do you want to leave the judgment about who can speak or who cannot speak on these platforms?” Roberts asked. “Do you want to leave it with the government or the state, or leave it with the platforms? The First Amendment has a thumb on the scale when that question is asked.”
Someone please correct me if i am not seeing this issue correctly, but for all i’m worth, i can’t help but see the same rationale for Affirmative Action. In this case, however, it’s the conservative MAGAt bullshitters who are demanding a seat at the table, and are calling discrimination! on the individual platforms who are refusing them a seat at the table. Am i misinterpreting something here?
Same goes for wedding cakes. Just sayin’.
This, i agree with.
“[To whom] do you want to leave the judgment about who can speak or who cannot speak on these platforms?”
The answer should be evaluated in the context of privacy – specifically, our inalienable right to it by default and backed by the government. Everyone is free to speak.
What is said is subject to the common sense, one of which is “You are responsible for what you say”, and the other is “Always be truthful.” Conservatives have forgotten that last one.
Who judges? We do. We all do.
Leave the lawyers out of it.
Smaller court schedules.
Fewer business weapons.
TBH there is no requirement anywhere that a person’s public utterances be truthful. While Thomas leans hard into his “I’m just a common man and I don’t understand why user agreements with a private company are different from state censorship” the fact is that these are all private companies.
Elon Musk has rendered xitter unusable to me, can I sue him for his business decision?
First, Justice Alito is no longer even trying to mask his political bias behind some Trojan horse legal arguments. He is a culture warrior for the right, and he apparently feels that he is free to make that plain to everyone. Second, it is no surprise that what Justice Thomas referred to as “euphemisms” elude him. Patently clear canons of judicial ethics elude him.
Clarence Thomas: Bought. Paid For. Beholden.
When clarence the corrupt publicly confesses to his stunning cluelessness, well, there’s ample evidence to support the contention. In this case, however, I believe it’s him being disingenuous and mendacious. He is, after all, a not particularly clever asshole.
I would have thought liability would be an issue. A company transmits information that is hazardous to health, for instance, as set by the NIH.
It is testament to how lax our laws are that individuals with deceased family members who refused a vaccine because of a media outlet, social or otherwise are…not suing.
Make the tech companies liable for any untruths they broadcast. Seems pretty straightforward.
True…lol
‘And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man .’
But are they really liable for lies or untruths that an individual makes while using the platform? I can’t see that.
However, requiring a positive ID of a user and not allowing them to be “anonymous” when making posts and comments would probably solve a lot of the issues. We know how few trolls are willing to be actually identified and called out for their opinions.
Has she had any lead opinions yet? Hoping they aren’t just ignoring her because she’s not on their side.
Is there a report out there anywhere that says who wrote majority for what and when?
